Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2026

[Laura Mitchell]

Honestly, it would be better to hear from the regional folks on those that have had implementation. I do know from hearing from them that they believe the TLE frameworks have expedited the addition of reserve lands, in great part because it's a tripartite process. You have provinces at the table participating in that and being willing to see a process through.

I know that we've completed about 52% of the land that needs to be added in Manitoba. We're at only 35% in Saskatchewan, but they have a lot of ATRs in the system. I think there are probably lessons learned there that could be replicated. I'm not familiar with the creation of the TLE framework, so I don't know what was the driver behind that. I don't know how replicable that is. I don't know what the catalyst was to create that.

[Billy Morin, Conservative, Edmonton Northwest, AB]

You spoke about regional differences, and maybe that might be the answer here, but I think I also read in the testimony of one individual who might be coming up after you that there hasn't been a new reserve created in Quebec in quite some time. Can you speak to why that would be for that particular jurisdiction?

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

I'm sorry. That's all the time we have.

I'm sure you can get that answer out later or provide it in writing.

We have MP Hanley for five minutes.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thanks to all of you for being here and for the opportunity to ask some questions.

I'm interested in the 2024 review carried out by Crown-Indigenous Relations and ISC and maybe just a bit of a larger context in order to understand what the impetus was for that review. Clearly, they were good reasons, but specifically, what was the impetus for the review?

Perhaps, Ms. Bess, you could lead off.

I'm interested in what the key takeaways really were. After seeing some of the report and the findings, I think the process seemed to be really robust. How might you apply the learnings from this report to other areas, where maybe there's still some slower progress in moving forward on some of the key files?

[Darlene Bess]

Thank you very much for the question.

The long story short is that it's long and cumbersome and there are many first nations without reserve or without reserve creation. The work we're doing at CIRNAC is on policy renewal and looking at how we can make the policy more efficient and faster for first nations, but we can't do anything without hearing from those involved.

A lot of consultation work was performed over the last few years. We had a total of 180 first nation-led and Canada-led engagement activities. We generated 930 recommendations from those consultations on how to redesign the policy. As you can imagine, trying to put all of those recommendations together and meet everybody's needs is a little bit difficult.

We have this technical advisory committee that provides technical advice and perspectives to support the development of policy options, so as we're going through the process of revising the policy and directives and guidelines, we're working with them to make sure they address not all of the 930 recommendations but to try to consolidate the bigger themes there to get things moving faster and more efficiently.

One of the other things we're looking at in general is the use of artificial intelligence and digital transformation tools. We talked about communication and service standards. That would be a great way for us to get back to communities in a more timely manner versus some of the manual processes that we currently have in the departments we operate in.

[Laura Mitchell]

What surfaced through that were five thematic areas that are challenging for reserve creation. Duty to consult takes time. You need to engage the nations, and that can go well, but sometimes it doesn't go very well. With municipal service agreements, you need to have municipalities willing to provide the services on the reserve that's been created. That is a negotiation process. Third party interest ends up being quite a hurdle.

We've really focused on the implementation side on what we can do on each of those things to try and improve that process. We've entered into a consultation protocol with the Manitoba Métis Federation to try and help us smooth the way in Manitoba a little bit. We're looking at piloting some conditions that exist under legislation that we think we can do without policy change to transition instruments. We're looking at that without having to renegotiate them. Then we're partnering with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and first nations organizations to raise the profile of urban reserve creation and what that might look like.

On the implementation side, that's where our focus has been.

[Darlene Bess]

The other element is risk. Sometimes we have very stringent guidelines, but we have to also look at where we can manage risk in some portions of the process. That is something we're looking at as well in terms of renewing the policy and alleviating some of the burden.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

I know I'm running out of time, but I noticed one of the areas was alignment with UNDRIP and other like agreements. I wonder if you could comment on the influence of UNDRIP, in particular, on the policy renewal.

[Darlene Bess]

The consultation with indigenous organizations and our partners is a key to the success of any policy, and hearing and listening to the concerns and needs is particularly important, which is part of the UNDRIP itself. We take that very seriously and, along the way, have been engaging and making sure that voices are heard and that we're incorporating those concerns and issues into the development of what we hope would be a better policy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much.

MP Lemire, you have two and a half minutes, please.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a document dating from 1997, which the Chief of Wolf Lake sent me, entitled “New Band and Landless Band Pressures”. In 1997, a list was already being compiled of bands without a territorial base, and there were a dozen of them in Quebec and Canada. What I see is that obviously not much has changed in 30 years.

First, would it be possible to provide us with a written copy of the complete list of communities that do not have reserve land or land-based status, as well as the status of negotiations with them, for the purposes of the study?

Second, I may be preaching more for my region, but is it possible to get a commitment from you, particularly in favour of the communities of Wolf Lake and Long Point? There are complicated situations, such as that of the Timiskaming first nation, where the territories are shared with the municipality. Some of the municipality’s territories belong to the community, and some of the community’s territories belong to the municipality of Notre-Dame-du-Nord. This is a problem. There are also issues with expansion in Pikogan. Of course, we are aware of the situations in the Kitcisakik communities, particularly that of the Lac-Barrière community in the La Vérendrye wildlife reserve.

Would you be willing to commit to concrete negotiations by the end of 2026 to regularize their status?

[Darlene Bess]

Yes, we can take that back and look into it, for sure.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you. I can guarantee my co-operation if I can play a role as a member of Parliament or as an intermediary. I would be very interested in doing so.

I have one last question. What are the challenges in negotiating with the provinces? Given that the territories are becoming Crown property, what effect does that have? Too often, I feel that this matter is used in tripartite negotiations to say that the negotiations are not progressing and that it is the fault of the third party. In the end, we return to the status quo, and the status quo obviously disadvantages communities and their members.

[Darlene Bess]

I'll start, and then I'll pass it to Laura.

I think there's capacity within communities to look at some of these things and understand how to approach the situation in terms of accessing and submitting an addition to reserve submission.

It's over to you Laura.

[Laura Mitchell]

I don't have much of a better answer, but we do try to take a project management team approach like getting the right people around the table to be able to be engaged and move the process along. In certain provinces it's easier than in others.

There is a policy in Quebec around reserve creation that's been on the books since 1982. I don't know how rigidly it's enforced, but it requires that the community have 200 members living together, that the ATR be only for the creation of housing and that the land be aligned with the population. There's a formula. Policies like that can create challenges. This is where you would need to speak to the regional folks. I don't know how strictly enforced that policy is, but it is still on the books.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Now we go to the Conservatives for five minutes.

Go ahead, Eric, please.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here.

I have one question I want to ask about a nation in my riding in northwest Ontario, Couchiching First Nation. It was promised land in the Treaty 5 adhesion way back in 1910. I know that the community, the chief and many have been working with their neighbours in Sandy Lake and with the federal government as well to have that recognition. I believe that in February last year, ISC put a work plan together on the next steps to make that happen, but it still seems fairly quiet.

I'm curious on behalf of the chief and residents in Couchiching First Nation if someone could provide an update on that.

[Laura Mitchell]

Is this about reserve creation? Yes, I would have to follow up with you. We can get back to you on that. I would not want to speak out of turn. We'll follow up with the region and make sure.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON]

Thank you.

I'll give the rest of my time to Mr. Schmale, if he'd like it.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes, ON]

Thank you very much.

Again, because we're talking about land and what this means, I want to quickly jump over to the Cowichan decision. The government itself, in my opinion, was a little late in submitting not only their objections but also their appeal. Now we have a question of where aboriginal title lines up with fee simple property in the Land Title Act in British Columbia. Justice Young's decision seems to put into question sections 23 and 25 of that land title system.

Given the fact that during the proceedings of what was one of Canada's largest court cases, the arguments on behalf of the Cowichan lawyers circled around land currently occupied within the limits of the city of Richmond. What outreach did the government do or the department do to inform residents that there could be some question put into their land in general over the ownership of it?

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso—Antigonish, NS]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

This is not within the scope of the study. I don't think that, when we're talking about ATRs and landless bands, the team would have prepared to be answering questions about land title, section 35, and its impact on overlapping jurisdictions of sovereignty.

If they have an answer, I'm more than happy to turn it over to them, but this is not what they were prepared to answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Are you prepared?

[Danielle White]

I can answer the question to the best of my ability.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes, ON]

I would argue otherwise. We're doing a land study.